Home Forums Reloading Handgun Reloading Brass tumbler,What's Good

In my move this fall I lost or tossed, my old tumbler, anything better for a hundred bucks or more?

I've been using a Frankford Arsenal tumbler for the last 4-5 years, I use hot water, Dawn dish detergent and Lemi-shine. The FA tumbler has a built in 3hr. timer, three hours of tumbling does a good job of cleaning the dirtiest brass. No dusty media or pins lodged in the primer pockets, no sifting or other PITA messing around. Pour out the water, rinse the brass and let air dry.

Iv been looking at that one! Sounds good.

Try it, you'll like it.

Are you just using a solution of water, Dawn, and Lemi-shine, no media or pins?

I use Lyman 1200 for dry walnut hulls and a Thumblers for wet with pins.

The rotary costs more than the 1200's but if you have some crappy brass it makes them shine like new.

Hot water, Dawn & Lemi-shine. Gave up the PITA pins that kept lodging in the primer pockets long ago. I'm cleaning powder residue off brass, not making jewelry so dazzling shine is not needed.

Go for volume. It takes just as much time and effort to clean 1 shell, 100 shells, 1000 shells, or 10000 shells in a tumbler if the tumbler has the capacity. If it doesn't you'll be multiplying your time and effort to run many batches. If you only have 500 pieces of brass or 1000 pieces of brass, then get more because the more brass you have, the greater the interval between cleaning it. I would much rather spend money avoiding brass cleaning than spend money on a tumbler that makes the process tedious and gives mediocre results. Most of the tumblers on the market are sized about right for people who shoot a little bit of a lot of different cartridges. If you primarily shoot one cartridge and shoot a lot of it, you'll want to look beyond the typical <20 lb <10L tumblers, unless you want to run multiples of them.

Even if you think, "oh, I don't shoot that much." Good. With a larger tumbler, you'll have to clean brass even less often. If you only have to clean brass once a year, that's a big win. Total up how much of your most popular cartridge you shoot in a year, and see if you can buy a tumbler that will do it all. The last time I priced small cement mixers, they weren't more expensive than "tumblers" sold for rock hounds and lapidary artists, or for brass cartridge cleaning. A used one off Craigslist could be even bigger and cheaper and if it's a little rough inside that will only enhance the tumbling action. With all the time you save, make some money to buy enough brass to fill it.

Lyman 1200 Turbo--or something from Larry

Just remember when using keeping unit off carpeted floors

Motor will last longer raised off the floor to ventilate

If your brass contains lead styphnate primers, you don't want to operate a dry tumbler anywhere in occupied space or where the dust containing lead salts will contaminate surfaces that people touch. Fresh media slightly dampened with a liquid polish additive will generate less dust, but the dry tumblers have a poor seal and after some use they will be sifting dust all over everything nearby. The best place to use them is outdoors or in a dedicated shed that can be hosed down.

A couple tablespoons of denatured alcohol (SLX or yellow bottle HEAT) will cause the dust to collect on the sides of the bowl. And the alcohol will evaporate quickly. A single USED dryer sheet, torn in thirds, added to the mix, will extend the life of the media by collecting the dirt/dust.

I use Harbor Frieght fine walnut shell blast media. I pretreat the media with 3 cap fulls of Nu Finish car polish - add and run for 1/2hr before use. My tumbler is an old Dillon CV500.

I tumble before I do anything with the brass. I tumble 223 range brass a second time after primer pockets and trimming. And I sometimes tumble loaded cartridges to clean them up.

If you're just doing straight walled cartridges corn cobb (pet bedding from the feed store) is great. If you're doing 223 I recommend walnut shell.

Well I bought a new FA unit, paid for it and it's sat for 4 days now, not sure why it's Not shipped yet.

I pour my brass and pins out of my wet tumbler into a rotary media separator and spin the pins out. Haven't had a single pin stuck in a flash hole or primer pocket since I started doing this. Takes about a minute to spin them out then put them in an old food dehydrator to dry.

Well after 3 weeks my FA tumbler is sposed to get here today! Now where do you get Lemi- shine????? Iv looked all over town. Google said Wally world carried it, nope not in my town.

Most grocery store carry it, look around where the dishwashing detergent is.

After I got my stainless steel pin tumbler, the media type tumblers are now collecting dust. Nothing better than wet stainless pins. I had some ancient 257 Roberts brass from the 1960s that was black from tarnish. 3 hours later they looked brand new! I haven't had problems with pins sticking in primer pockets.

Dump those damn pins and use 1/8 pellets. Soooo much easier to separate from the brass and they do just as good of a job cleaning.


Anyone want to buy mine?

forget the lemishine. get some citric acid 1tbl spoon full with a squirt of dawn dish soap. brass looks new. pin media has never stuck in flash holes for me.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Pure-Citric-Acid-Powder-Food-Grade-FCC-USP-HIGHEST-QUALITY-GRADE

Right now my favorite is the Hornady M1. This works as well as any and is far, far quieter than any I've used.

Thanks pilot, found the Lemi- shine by the dish washer stuff! Well Boys gun wizard was right 3hrs and iv got the cleanest brass iv ever cleaned! Just hot water, Lemi- shine and some dawn soap. Thanks for the info!